Semiconductor devices are used in a variety of electronic applications, such as personal computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and other electronic equipment, as examples. Semiconductor devices are typically fabricated by sequentially depositing insulating (or dielectric) layers, conductive layers, and semiconductive layers of material over a semiconductor substrate, and patterning the various layers using lithography to form circuit components and elements thereon.
A transistor is an element that is utilized extensively in semiconductor devices. There may be millions of transistors on a single integrated circuit (IC), for example. A common type of transistor used in semiconductor device fabrication is a metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET).
Early MOSFET processes used one type of doping to create either positive or negative channel transistors. More recent designs, referred to as complimentary MOS (CMOS) devices, use both positive and negative channel devices, e.g., a positive channel metal oxide semiconductor (PMOS) transistor and a negative channel metal oxide semiconductor (NMOS) transistor, in complimentary configurations. An NMOS device negatively charges so that the transistor is turned on or off by the movement of electrons, whereas a PMOS devices involves the movement of electron vacancies. While the manufacture of CMOS devices requires more manufacturing steps and more transistors, CMOS devices are advantageous because they utilize less power, and the devices may be made smaller and faster.
The gate dielectric for MOSFET devices has in the past typically comprised silicon dioxide, which has a dielectric constant of about 3.9. However, as devices are scaled down in size, using silicon dioxide for a gate dielectric becomes a problem because of gate leakage current, which can degrade device performance. Therefore, there is a trend in the industry towards the development of the use of high dielectric constant (k) materials for use as the gate dielectric in MOSFET devices. The term “high k dielectric materials” as used herein refers to a dielectric material having a dielectric constant of about 4.0 or greater.
High k gate dielectric development has been identified as one of the future challenges in the 2002 edition of International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), incorporated herein by reference, which identifies the technological challenges and needs facing the semiconductor industry over the next 15 years. For low power logic (for portable electronic applications, for example), it is important to use devices having low leakage current, in order to extend battery life. Gate leakage current must be controlled in low power applications, as well as sub-threshold leakage, junction leakage, and band-to-band tunneling.
In electronics, the “work function” is the energy, usually measured in electron volts, needed to remove an electron from the Fermi level to a point an infinite distance away outside the surface. Work function is a material property of any material, whether the material is a conductor, semiconductor, or dielectric. The work function of a metal is a fixed value. The work function of a semiconductor can be changed by doping the semiconductor material. For example, undoped polysilicon has a work function of about 4.5 eV, whereas polysilicon doped with boron has a work function of about 5.0 eV. The work function of a semiconductor or conductor directly affects the threshold voltage of a transistor when the material is used as a gate electrode.
In prior art CMOS devices utilizing SiO2 as the gate dielectric material, the work function of a CMOS device could be changed or tuned by doping the polysilicon used for the gate electrode material. However, high-k gate dielectric materials such as a hafnium-based dielectric material exhibit a Fermi-pinning effect, which is caused by the interaction of the high-k gate dielectric material with the adjacent gate material. When used as a gate dielectric, high k gate dielectric material pins or fixes the work function, so that doping the polysilicon gate material does not change the work function. Thus, a symmetric Vt for the NMOS and PMOS transistors of a CMOS device having a high k dielectric material for the gate dielectric cannot be achieved by doping polysilicon gate material, as in SiO2 gate dielectric CMOS devices.
Using a metal gate or silicided gate also results in an asymmetric work function when the gate dielectric material comprises a high k dielectric material. The Fermi-pinning effect of high k gate dielectric materials causes a threshold voltage shift and low mobility, due to the increased charge caused by the Fermi-pinning effect. Fermi-pinning of high k gate dielectric material causes an assymmetric turn-on threshold voltage Vt for the transistors of a CMOS device, which is undesirable. Efforts have been made to improve the quality of high-k dielectric films and resolve the Fermi-pinning problems, but the efforts have resulted in little success.
Thus, what is needed in the art is a CMOS transistor device and method of manufacturing thereof that has a high-k gate dielectric material and a symmetric Vt for the p channel metal oxide semiconductor (PMOS) and n channel metal oxide semiconductor (NMOS) transistors of the CMOS device.